Heritage of Stars
by Serenity V
Summary: "When she shall die, take her and cut her out in little stars, and she will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun." Bittersweet piece written in a bout of angst after Ep. 3:20, "The Artax Network." (Includes Agnes, but she hasn't been added to the character list yet. I'll fix that later.)


**A.N.:** _Originally posted as a chapter in "An Acquired Taste," I made this into a stand alone story after the Season 3 Finale rendered it AU. The chapter has been replaced by my story, "Six Impossible Things," which now fits into the canon universe, yay!_

* * *

Agnes Elizabeth Keen was a normal woman of average height and build with unassuming brown hair and kind dark eyes. She'd grown up to become a schoolteacher – fourth grade, if you can believe it.

Yeah, Jacob had laughed, too, indulging in a rare, bittersweet moment of imagining what Liz would have had to say.

Agnes hadn't questioned his reaction beyond a raised eyebrow; some topics regarding her parents, she'd eventually learned, were best left alone.

She now strolled through the streets of D.C., making her way towards her destination only a few blocks away, where she knew her father would be waiting. It was her birthday, and they had a tradition to honor.

Of course, while Jacob had done an admirable job of ensconcing his daughter in a cocoon of normalcy, their family was inherently abnormal, and that fact had reared its head a couple of times throughout her life – and, evidently, the complications attached to Agnes' genes chose that moment to manifest themselves once more, in the form of a man, armed with a handgun, emerging from the mouth of a deserted alley as she passed.

As he accosted the woman, she flashed a brief grimace of chagrin; her dad would give her one of his overprotective lectures about "healthy paranoia" if he found out how easily she'd been taken by surprise. Even as this thought flitted through the back of her mind, she reacted on an almost instinctual level, twisting the firearm from her attacker's grasp, and backing away to a manageable distance while training it steadily on him.

Her father had always striven to give her normalcy, yes, but he'd taken no chances in ensuring she would be capable of defending herself. Her surrogate family at the FBI had had a hand in that, as well.

Agnes took a moment to stretch out her senses, tense as she waited for an attack from a different angle. After she realized none would be forthcoming, she looked at her assailant in shock, asking incredulously, "Wait, it's just you? Seriously?"

He glared at her, but she took his silence for an affirmative. With her background, she was conditioned to expect highly specific attacks, but something so haphazard could only be a random act of violence. She snorted.

"Not your lucky day, man. Do you have any idea who I am?"

"I know enough. I just take who I'm supposed to take."

Agnes blinked in surprise; apparently, her first instinct had been right. He _had_ been after her, he just hadn't known whom he was dealing with.

 _Well, that sucks for him._

"Well, not this time, buddy. Obviously. You picked a fight with the wrong woman; I'm the daughter of Masha Rostova and Jacob Phelps." She used their "real" names, the ones that would be recognized in such circles as this.

It was the man's turn to snort, asking derisively, "That KGB agent's brat and the sorry excuse for an operative who fell for his mark and left the life for her?"

Points for being brave enough to insult her in their current situation. Or, maybe, it was just stupidity. Truth be told, Agnes was inclined to believe it was the latter, given this guy's track record.

"One of the most competent and effective agents the FBI has ever seen, capable of handling some of the most dangerous men in the world with ease, and the man who _survived_ walking away from the life for her."

"Whatever," he scoffed. It came off rather more petulantly than he'd probably intended. Maybe he'd been hoping to trip her up by getting a rise out of her. No such luck; he'd have to try harder than that. Her dad often wondered where her patience and level-headedness came from, claiming she'd inherited it from neither him nor her mother.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," the woman said, holding the gun in her right hand and reaching into her pocket with her left, "I have to make a call." She dialed number four on her speed dial, the man in front of her staring at her as though she was crazy. Hey, maybe she was; she was pretty sure it ran in the family.

By the second ring, the man seemed to gather his wits enough to think that the phone split the woman's attention enough to make her vulnerable. In the blink of an eye, a knife materialized in his hand, and he rushed her.

The sound of the phone call being answered was swallowed up in the sound of the gunshot as he fell to the ground, crying out in pain.

A voice came from the other end of the line, demanding, "Was that a gunshot?"

"Hey, Uncle Ress," Agnes greeted calmly – _cheerily,_ actually, as though there were nothing out of the ordinary. Well, for them, this _was_ ordinary.

"Yeah," she continued, "This idiot tried to corner me in an alley, and I had to kneecap him."

Usually, if found in a similar situation, Agnes would just call 911 and do everything through the proper channels. She had somewhere to be, though, and wasn't about to waste time giving statements and dancing around red tape.

"Let me guess," Ressler's voice came over the phone. "You want me to send someone to pick up the mess."

"Pretty please? You know, normally, I wouldn't ask, but I'm on my way to meet up with my dad right now…"

Ressler sighed, "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just hang tight, my guy will be there in five minutes, alright?"

"You're the best!"

"Yeah, yeah," he said, brushing it off, but she could hear the smile in his voice.

"Oh, and Agnes?"

"Yeah?"

"Happy Birthday."

"Thanks, Uncle Ress." The call ended.

* * *

Ten minutes later found Agnes at the cemetery, approaching her dad where he waited for her at her mother's grave. Agnes' birthday was also the anniversary of her mom's death, and every year, from her very first birthday – though she couldn't actually remember that one – her dad had brought her here and simply talked about her mom; it seemed there was always another story she didn't know.

They usually spent about an hour at the grave, before leaving the cemetery and switching their focus to celebrating Agnes' birthday. It was a far healthier way to deal with the loss than most men would have managed, which was a little ironic, all things considered.

"Tell me about Mom," Agnes asked, as she always did.

Jacob began the same way he always did.

"Your mother was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, to this day. Besides you, of course. She was _beyond_ intelligent. And she was so kind… But _man,_ you did _not_ cross that woman! I learned that the hard way…"

Agnes shook her head in awe of her father's wry smile and casual levity. For as long as Agnes could remember, he had always made that same comment about crossing Liz, usually accompanied by some new anecdote from her exploits, but it had taken her years to learn the real story behind it.

It was a story of lies and blood and chains and boats. Agnes had learned to accept it, but she would never see it the way her father did. He joked about it, called it the story of how "The universe – and everyone and everything in it – hated me and your mom, and even though both of us screwed up world-record-breaking status along the way, in the end, we chose each other and told the universe to go screw itself – Your mom, out of sheer stubbornness, and me, because she was so worth it."

In Agnes' mind, it went more along the lines of, "Everyone always says my mom walked on water, and I always thought my dad did, too, but apparently, they were neither of them clear-cut good people in their day, and I'm not sure how to deal with that because it means that when they acted like complete idiots, they were _dangerous_ idiots, and they hurt each other _way_ beyond the realms of 'normal' or 'acceptable.' But, in the end, the one thing I can believe is that they really did love each other. I really don't know if that makes it okay, but it was enough for them, so I guess it can be for me, too, right?" In the end, it'd had to be enough, and though she'd never exactly be _okay_ with it, she could live with it.

She listened in comfortable companionship as her father spoke, talking about her mother's determination and intelligence and protectiveness, juxtaposing those stories with lighter, more domestic ones featuring her beauty and sense of humor and gentleness.

About the third thing Agnes remembered learning about her mother was that she couldn't cook, she thought with a smile. (The first had been that Liz had loved her daughter with all her heart, and the second that she was "to blame" for her name.)

Maybe Agnes Keen had never met her mother, but she knew her, all the same.

Looking up at the sky as she returned home that night, Agnes remembered the quote on Liz's gravestone, put there after Uncle Aram had shared it at the funeral. (Apparently, Liz had loved Shakespeare.)

"I love you, Mom," she whispered to the stars. She liked to think her mother heard.


End file.
